Undergraduate Courses
Social and Cultural Anthropology (E200)
This course focuses on ethnographic research and writing to explore the dynamics of social life in its many forms. The primary goal of this course is to introduce students to the fundamental concepts and themes of cultural anthropology, including social organization; kinship; religion, myth, and ritual; gender; ethnicity; and others. The course seeks to make the diverse cultures of the world understandable—to make the strange familiar, and the familiar strange. By learning about other cultures we will learn something about ourselves as well. [syllabus]
Culture, Health, and Illness (E260)
Why do people in some cultures suffer illnesses caused by fear, nerves, and the evil eye, and what cures exist? Who are shamans, and what roles do they play across cultures? How can specialists trained in biomedicine be more sensitive to the cultural beliefs of their patients? What are anthropologists doing to address the AIDS pandemic?
We explore these questions and many more in this course. The meanings of “health” and illness, and the experience of one’s body, are often taken for granted. However, our ideas about and experiences of health, “dis-ease,” and medicine are profoundly shaped by culture, transnational flows of people, ideas, and resources, histories of colonialism and structural inequalities, and the development of new technologies. An informed understanding of a person or group’s health and illness experiences must begin by exploring the multiple contexts—cultural, geopolitical, and socio-economic—from which those experiences are generated. In this course, students will learn to think about issues of health, disease, and medicine in cross-cultural and global terms. [syllabus]
Peoples and Cultures of Russia, Ukraine, and the Newly Independent States (E348)
This cultural anthropology course introduces students to the many fascinating peoples and cultures of Russia, Ukraine, and other parts of the Former Soviet Union. In addition to studying the region and its history broadly, we have a special focus on native peoples of Siberia, several minority cultures in Russia and Ukraine, and Russian and Ukrainian popular cultures (consumer culture, rock music, and new monuments and architecture).
We use case studies, ethnographies (detailed descriptions of groups by anthropologists), and videos to learn about the histories of specific regions and groups, and to discuss fundamental concepts in cultural anthropology such as religion and myth, music and dance, ethnicity, national identity and political power, historical memory and cultural heritage, formations of gender, and popular culture. [syllabus]
Graduate/undergraduate seminars
Graduate Seminars
Post-Socialist Gender Formations (E614)
This graduate seminar focuses on questions of gender, sexuality, and power during and after socialism in the countries of the former Soviet Bloc. Readings and seminar discussions begin by centering on the Soviet project(s) to emancipate women, and “feminizing” and “masculinizing” projects throughout the region. Most attention is given to recent developments in gender formations as socialist projects have given way to capitalism and globalization. We will read theoretical works as well as case studies and ethnographies to understand the discourses and struggles motivating contemporary gender ideologies in the former Soviet Bloc countries. [syllabus]
Graduate/undergraduate seminars:
Advanced Seminar in Medical Anthropology (E445/645)
The meanings of “health” and disease, and the experience of one’s body, are often taken for granted. However, our ideas about and experiences of health, “dis-ease,” and medicine are profoundly shaped by culture, transnational flows of people, ideas, and resources, histories of colonialism and structural inequalities, and the development of new technologies. An informed understanding of a person or group’s health and illness trajectories must begin by exploring the multiple contexts—cultural, geopolitical, and socio-economic—from which those experiences are generated. In this course, students will learn to think about issues of health, disease, and medicine in cross-cultural and global terms.
The course is divided into five broad and interrelated units. The first unit focuses on cultural contexts of illness, health, and ideologies of the body. Unit two considers in more depth healing practices around the world, focusing on ritual aspects of healing and how modes of healing across cultures articulate with particular perceptions about the body and what it means to be “sick.” The third unit turns to the questions of medical knowledge production and the politics of contemporary biomedical healing. The fourth unit ties together many of the themes thus far considered, filtering them through the powerful lens of gender. We examine men and women as gendered subjects in the contexts of health, illness, and medicine. Unit five follows up on many of these themes, but shifts the focus to the political and moral economies of health in the global context. We take up issues such as structural violence, social inequalities in health, and the health consequences of state retreat. [syllabus]
Anthropology of Russia and East Europe (E412/612)
In this course, we explore the contradictory effects of socialism’s “fall” as we examine new ethnographies of postsocialism. We connect our inquiries to broad intellectual questions in anthropology and related disciplines, including globalization; social suffering; commodification, power, and identity; nation building and ethnicity; religious identity and conflict; and gender inequalities. Geographically, we focus on the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the Former Soviet Union, as well as Central and Eastern European countries.
The course emphasizes a “from-below” view of postsocialism by grounding the processes of nation building, commodification, democratization, Westernization, and globalization in people’s everyday lives. Therefore, methodologically, the emphasis is on ethnographic approaches. We also take up considerations of reflexivity in fieldwork, and pay close attention to the relevance of the researcher’s own background and academic position for the scholarly claims made. [syllabus]
Chernobyl: Legacies of a Meltdown (E400/600)
In this course students learn about the far-reaching and intersecting environmental, political, social, and health effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. This course offers an integrated view of Chernobyl and other ecological disasters, illustrating the important environmental aspects of such events, but also other ways in which calamities such as Chernobyl reverberate locally and globally with persons and societies. We interweave discussions of policy and international law with considerations of ethics, risk, social entitlements, subjective experiences of health and disease, and others. The course utilizes anthropological approaches to studying complex events such as Chernobyl via unique literatures and media sources that highlight local, humanistic interpretations of the disaster while placing the accident’s effects in a dynamic, multidisciplinary, global context. Going beyond Chernobyl as an environmental case study, we examine the symbolic uses of the accident, local interpretations of nuclear catastrophe, and Chernobyl as an example of various globalizing forces. Ultimately, the course guides students through the labyrinth of Chernobyl effects while highlighting the linkages between ecological, medical, political, and social aftershocks of a techno-environmental catastrophe. [syllabus]
Link to the Chernobyl Resource Page.
